COURSE SYLLABUS PSYCHOLOGY 1A Dr. Nancy Bales Outside office: (831) 637-6534 Email: nbales@sbcglobal.net Text: Essentials of Psychology: Exploration and Application Dennis Coon Course Description: Introduction to Psychology is designed to provide an overview of the science of psychology together with the scientific study of the factors influencing human development and behavior. Course Objectives: 1. To help students understand that their own behavior and the behavior of others is a combination of their biology (including their genetics) and their environment. 2. To be able to analyze both the construction and results of a scientific research. 3. To be able to describe the basic functions of both the brain and its neurotransmitters. 4. To understand how our drives, motives and emotions directly impact our behavior. 5. To understand the effects of prenatal environment, attachment and parenting skills on human behavior. 6. To develop a general, fundamental understanding of mental illness, including its neurological and environmental causes and effects on individuals, families and society.
Contact Information: Because I do not have an office on-campus, I do not have regularly scheduled office hours. I am, however, available to my students through my off-campus office at (831) 637-6534 or through my email address: nbales@monkm.com. I check for messages at these two sites on a regular business day basis. I do, however, check my email daily. You can expect a reply usually within 24 hours. Because I live on the West Coast, however, there may be a time delay. If I do not, for some reason, return your contact within 24 hours, please feel free to contact me again. Special Assistance: Any student in this course who has a disability that may prevent him or her from fully demonstrating his or her abilities, should contact me personally as soon as possible so I can discuss accommodations to ensure full participation and facilitate your educational opportunity. Course Requirements: Each student is required to: 1. Because the central focus of this class is the material within your textbook, each student is required to read that chapter prior to the beginning of each week s class discussion 2. Students are required to log on to the class web site for class discussions at least twice a week. The only way I can know that you have logged on to the site, is for you to actively participate in the asynchronous discussion within your group. Every student is required to make a minimum of two postings and two replies to another group member s postings every week. Student group discussions will focus on the applications of information within each chapter. 3. Students are required to actively participate in their student group in creating an essay answer to a topic question for each week. To do this, they must make a minimum of two postings of contributions to forming the group s answer. In addition, they are required to make a minimum of two responses to the postings of other members of their group. 4. Every student is required to take an essay final exam.
Grading Policies 40 points based on participation within group asynchronous discussion of chapter applications and chapter topic question 40 points based on the quality of group answers to chapter topic questions 20 points based on final essay exam Resource Guidelines Within the Assignments area, along with the application and chapter topic questions, web sites are listed where students can go to gather additional information on the chapter topics. In addition to expanding your knowledge in this area, these sites may provide information you can use for both your group discussion and group essay answers. Student Participation and Group Discussion Groups: Each student will be assigned to a group of students for the purposes of discussion of chapter applications and preparing answers to chapter topic questions. You are strongly encouraged to participate in these activities. Not only will participation greatly enhance your experience in this class, but 40% of your grade will be determined by the level of your participation. You are required to log in to this class site at least twice each week and to make a minimum number of postings and responses to the postings of other group members. COURSE CALENDAR Week 1 Schools of Psychology Methods of Research Conducting a Scientific Experiment Separating Fact From Fiction in the Media American Psychological Association
http://www.apa.org/ Psychoweb http://www.psychweb.com/ Week 2 Parts of the Brain Communication within the Nervous System Neurotransmitters Peripheral and Central Nervous Systems What Part do Neurotransmitters Play in Your Moods Web Sites to Visit Brain Briefings http://www.sfn.org/briefings/ Neuroscience Atlas Images http://anatomy.uams.edu/htmlpages/anatomyhtml/neuro_ atlas.html/ Week 3 Neurological Differences Between the Genders Structural Differences Functional Differences Communication Differences Which Came First? Week 4 Gender and Sexuality Sexual Development Sex Roles and Socialization Sexual Orientation Rethinking Homosexuality Go Ask Alice http://www.goaskalice.columbia.edu/indes.html Preventing HIV Infection
http://www.tht.org.uk/pubs/prvinfec.htm Week 5 Healthy Pregnancy and Delivery Genetic Programming Importance of Attachment Theories of Piaget Enriching Early Development Depression After Delivery http://www.behavenet.com/dadsgwa Diving into the Gene Pool http://www.exploratorium.edu/genepool;genepool_home.html Parenthood Web http://www.parenthoodweb.com/ Week 6 Erikson s Psychosocial Stages of Development Normal and Severe Problems of Childhood Common Patterns of Adolescent and Adult Development Effective Parenting Stages of Death and dying Defining the Importance of Attachment Alzheimer s Association http://www.alz.org/ Mental Health Risk Factors for Adolescents http://education.indiana.edu/cas/adol/mental.html Mental Health Risk Factors in Middle Age http://midmac.med.harvard.edu/midmac.html Webster s Death, Dying and Grief Guide http://www.katsden.com/death.index.html Week 7 Sensation and Reality
Sensory Systems Selecting, Analyzing, Reducing, Transducing, and Coding Information Sensory Adaptation, Selective Attention, and Sensory Gating Pain Management Hearnet and Rock Musicians http://www.hearnet.com/text/mainframe.html How We See http://www.gene.com/ae/ae/aec/cc/vision _background.html Week 8 Perception as Assembling Sensations into Meaningful Patterns and Representations of External Events Effects of Learning, Motives, Values, Attention, and Expectations On Perception ESP The Reliability of Eye Witnesses Illusionworks http://www.illusionworks.com/ Perceptual Process http://onesun.cc.geneseo.edu/~intd225/prcptn.html Week 9 Sleep and Dreaming Hypnosis Drugs and Alcohol Exploring Your Dreams Circadian Rhythms http://www.mayohealth.org/mayo.9503/htm/circadia.ht
Sleep Net http://www.sleepnet.com/index.shtml Drugs and Behavior http://www.uwsp.edu/acad/psychptdrugs.htm Hypnosis http://goinside.com/97/4/barber.html Week 10 Classical Conditioning Operant Conditioning The Effects of Punishment Cognitive Learning Observational Learning Violence and the Media Television as Teacher Conditioning Tutor http://www.science.wayne.edu/~wpoff/memory.html Animal Training at Sea World http://www.seaworld.org/animal_training/atcontents.html Television Violence http://www.ksuedu/humec/fshs/tv97.htm Week 11 Memory Encoding Storage Retrieval False Memories Comparing childhood Memories among Family Members Working Memory http://www.nimg.nih.gov/events/prfmri2.htm
False Memory Test http://www.sciam.com/0597issue/0597scicit3.html Memory Techniques http://www.demon.co.uk.mindtool/memory.html Memory-Enhancing Drugs for Alzheimer s Patients http://www.sciam.com/0397issue/0397techbusl.html Repressed Memories of childhood Abuse http://www.apa.org/pubinfo/mem.html Repressed and Recovered Memories http://www.ntu.ac.uk/sac/bscpsych/context/recovr.html Week 12 Cognition Intelligence Creativity Problem-Solving Creative Problem-Solving Cross-Cultural Intelligence http://www.apa.org/monitor/oct97/define.html Creativity Web http://www.ozemail.com.au/~caveman/creative/ Mental Retardation http://www.thearc.org/faqs/mrqa.html Knowns and Unknowns About Intelligence http://www.apa.org/releases/intell.html How Inventions and Discovery Happen http://hawaii.cogsci.uiuc.edu/invent/invention.html Primate Language http://www.fonz.org/zoogoer/main.htm Week 13 Motivation Theories Maslow s Hierarchy of Needs The Emotional Experience Emotional Intelligence Animals and Emotions
Controlling Anger http://www.aga.org/pubinfo/anger.html Emotional Intelligence http://trochim.human.cornell.edu/gallery/young/emotion.html and http://www.utne.com/lens/bms/9bmsez.html Human Emotions Links http://www-white.media.mit.edu/visnod/demos/affect/ AC_research/emotions.html Validity and Lie Detectors http://www.aga.org/releases/liedetector.html Week 14 Health Psychology Stress and Health Learned Helplessness Effects of Self Talk Applications: Stress Management Articles about Stress http://www.apa.org/work/index.html Stress Management http://www.unl.edu/stress/mgmo Stress, Anxiety, Fears, and Psychosomatic Disorders http://www.cmhc.com/psyhelp/chap5/ Week 15 Abnormal Psychology Schizophrenia Bi-polar Major Depression Are the Mentally Ill Dangerous Guide to Depressive and Manic Depressive Illness http://www.ndmda.org/id.htm Schizophrenia
http://www.mhsource.com;advocacy/narsad/schiz.html Internet Mental Health http://www.mentalhealth.com/ Week 16 Abnormal Psychology Dysthymia and Other Mood Disorders Anxiety-Based Disorders Personality Disorders Applications: Personality Disorders in Everyday Life Guide to Depressive and Manic Depressive Illness http://www.ndmda.org/id.htm Anxiety Disorders http://addaa.org/1a_doors/1a_01.htm Understanding Personality Disorders http://www.healthguide.com/english/brain/personality/default.htm.